In two weeks time, the first match of this year's back to back Ashes series will get underway in England.

During the series, it's expected that fast bowlers from both the Australian and English teams will launch the cricket ball down the pitch at speeds ranging from 136 kilometres per hour to close to 200.

How is it that elite sports men and women can throw with such power?

Charles Darwin was known to observe the unique throwing abilities of humans and researchers in the United States have taken the time to look at when it was that our early ancestors first developed throwing skills.

To talk us through the research findings and break down the simple task of throwing a ball, Mornings was joined by Science commentator and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, Darren Curnoe.

"Charles Darwin was one of the first people to really talk about it from a scientific perspective, just how unique our throwing ability is. It's really quite remarkable when you think about cricket, baseball...

"What the researchers found was that there's a package of features in our body that all appear at around two million years ago...that actually allow us to throw with this incredible speed and accuracy."

As Mr Curnoe explained, that package of features was probably used for hunting to acquire out food.

"We don't really hunt much anymore, apart from in the supermarket of course! So we can now use that for amazing things like throwing cricket balls and baseballs."

While he said the shoulder was the main part of it, the arm's ligaments, muscles and tendons are what allow for the speed and force.

"When we actually bend our arm back as though we are going to pitch a ball, all these tendons and ligaments actually store up energy and that gives us that great power with this very stable shoulder joint, we can also get the accuracy as well."

What about those of us who can't throw so well?

"I'm not great at throwing a ball myself actually! It's probably a question of practice I suppose, maybe some of us wouldn't be very good hunters!"

Hear Darren Curnoe explain how our homo erectus ancestor is linked to our throwing and athletic abilities, what animal shares our throwing capabilities and how much of our ability to throw is technique, coordination or practice based.